How Criminally Criminal
by whenimnotlivingimreading
Summary: Basically, a little beginning to a story; one that involves Kat alone, Hale searching for her, a pair of pantyhose, and an elusive Romanov heirloom...please read and review!
1. Unlawfully Lawful

***This is something I wrote one time - might continue, might not. I'll say it once and never again - all rights go to Ally Carter and her fabulous characters. All right, I have my hot chocolate, my velvet armchair, and my cat in my lap - shall we begin?***

"Who are you?"

I tapped my worn, once-electric-blue Converse impatiently on the floor. "Kat."

The man drummed his fingertips on his desk, tapping out rhythms to popular songs. Somehow, the steady beats were out of tune and I caught myself humming one in the right key, probably to correct him, but I coughed to silence myself and he ceased his barrage on the mahogany. His gaze trained on my careless posture; I had rejected his offer to make use of the spindly wooden chair he placed in front of his desk as a matter of pride, as a matter of distrust.

"Kat, sweetie," he sighed, rubbing his spectacles tiredly on his checkered shirt sleeve, "Listen, honey. We don't have room, darling –"

"My name is Kat," I interrupted him, "Not sweetie, not honey, and definitely not darling. Just _Kat_."

He cleared his throat and barely stifled an eye roll. He must think me an impetuous teenager on the run from home. That's the cover I live under, though truly, I am a lone wolf. I have no home, no family, and no friends. I have no setbacks. I stand alone.

"Alright, 'Just Kat'." His voice is caustic; it spits venom, now that he's realized I won't let him walk all over me. He discarded his thin veneer of kindness for his true nature, one of a harried and highly annoyed male. "I'll level with you, okay? This hotel has no room for you. We're absolutely full. So go run home to your parents, okay sweetie?"

"Oh, pity, but I can't do that," I slapped a palm on the desk. "They died in a tragic carbon monoxide accident, as did my younger sister. And didn't we already clear up the whole 'sweetie' business?"

The man raised one eyebrow, almost in pity. This angers me beyond belief. I do not need anyone's pity. No one's. At my warning glance, his face hardens again; "Don't play games with me, young lady. I have _no_ time for this."

"I have connections," I murmured. "The Secretary of State won't be too happy to hear that you're refusing to board his godchild. Also, what about the Prime Minister? He was very close with my father's mother. One call and you're out of a job. Is that perfectly clear, mister?" He sighed.

"You, miss, are unbelievable."

I flipped out my cell phone and dialed quickly, pushing the button for speakerphone. A voice crackled over the poor projection that was, somehow, still unbelievably attractive -

"Hello, Kitty Kat."

"Ahem," I reply strongly, "Hello, manager to the Secretary of State."

His voice changed amusedly. "You've reached the manager of the Secretary of State, W.W. Hale; how may I assist you?"

"Hey, Hale," I replied listlessly.

"Kat, my girl! Sup?"

The innkeeper waved his arms frantically, signaling me to stop talking, that he'd remedy his earlier actions. Unfortunately, I am and forever will be a grudge-bearing creature that typically refuses to rest until I've found and executed a master plan of revenge.

"Yeah, I'm here at…" I glanced outside to the flickering sign, "The Holiday Inn at Stratford. See, this guy isn't letting me board here. Says there's no room for a poor, impoverished runaway like myself." I dragged my voice out so it was dripping with sarcasm, and spun slightly to hide the smile on my lips from the desk manager, who may as well have been ready to snatch the phone from my hands.

"He giving you trouble?" Hale growls appropriately.

"Of a sort," I replied in a superiorly satisfied tone.

"Do I need to call the boys?"

"No! No, sir! This is all a misunderstanding!" The poor desk clerk replied hurriedly, "I did not know she was of such…standing, if you will. I was looking out for her health. She looks like a runaway, and I thought…I was going to dial her parents…she's only a little girl, you know…"

"Don't pretend you've got compassion, _sir_," I snapped back. "You _disgust_ me. Earlier, you were two seconds away from ringing for those burly buffoons you call security. Hiding behind your little wooden desk, huh? Can't beat up a little girl alone? Look at you. Pathetic."

"Young. Lady.," The man said, his words halting with anger, "You overstep yourself."

"Excuse me?" Hale asked coolly. "She is a paying customer, and she'll overstep you however she likes."

"I'll give her the King Suite, sir, no charge," he replied resignedly.

"If I hear anything from her…" Hale says, "About how you treated her negatively, you better pack up your little bronze-encrusted nameplate and skip town. Clear?"

"Yes, sir, of course, sir." The desk clerk scrambles to hand me a room key in a paper sheath. I snap the phone shut, listening to Hale's "Be careful, Kitty Kat" as I turn from the desk.

"Now, madam, do you have any bags we can help you with?"

I shoot him a vicious glare and sling my Jansport over my shoulder. "No, thank you. I don't need help to carry a backpack."

He shrugs his shoulders and ushers me off with a hand gesture. I sigh and board the elevator. Some people…

My room is nice; I'll give them credit for that. I collapse on the fluffy sheets and begin the tedious task of unpacking my barely organized bunch of items stuffed in the bag.

Yard of rope. Check.

Sketchbook/journal with purple gel pen. Check.

Photo of mom. Uncheck.

I frantically toss everything from the backpack. My pockets. The pockets of my Aeropostale hoodie. Nothing. It's gone.

I bite my lip to keep in a scream of frustration. No, it cannot be gone. It can't be just…gone…

Wait, what's that? My gaze caught a small scrap of paper hanging from the mirror. I dash to it, to find it's really one of those room service envelopes, attached with scotch tape. I pull it down with a gentle tug and rip it open with trembling fingers. Disbelievingly, I turn it around in my grasp…just as suspected, it's the Polaroid snapshot. Glossy, yet timeworn, it's ripped edges still allow a view of mother. Smiling eternally at nothing.

I flip it over. On the white side, a scribbled note – "Left this in Vienna. Thought you might want it, you secret sentimental sap, you."

I swallow down bile. I recognize the handwriting. The hand that scribbled this is no friend of mine.


	2. Little Emily Dickinson For You

***Wow guys, thanks for the quick responses…expect more in the future…keep reviewing, please! It makes my day And now, onto the infamous W.W. Hale.***

**Hale**

"Where is she?"

I watched the man fidget. He combed his left hand through his hair in an attempt to maintain calm, hooking his left thumb through his belt loop.

"Who?"

I slammed a palm on the desk, leaned closer, almost knocking over the bronze nameplate I'd threatened him with earlier. He inched away in his chair, slicked-back hair beaded with the beginnings of sweat.

"I think you know exactly who. Katarina Josephine Bishop."

"I'm sorry," he said smoothly, "I don't recall - "

"Or," I cut him off, "anyone named Maggie Pfeiffer, Jordan Young, Amy Reinhold, or Patricia Johnson? Or maybe Kat? Or, if you were the one ticking her off, 'Just Kat'? Short, chocolate brown hair, dark eyes…blue Jansport, dirty Converse, easily annoyed?"

"Oh," he made a face, and said distastefully, "_that girl_."

With that one sentence, he'd sealed his fate. I slid my sunglasses down the bridge of my nose, set my jaw, and glared him down with the Hale family trademark stare; eyes contacted and body rigid, posture unforgiving. He gulped, waiting for me to speak.

"Where might I find…that girl?"

"You sound familiar…do I know you?" he asked, cocking his head to the side. In truth he may have recognized me from that drastic phone call Kat made to the manager to the Secretary of State (I quite like the sound of that – W.W. Hale, manager to the Secretary of State). As much as I enjoyed playing the character, it offered me something more – an opportunity to trace that call, find the hotel, and make her come back home.

"No," I said coolly, "never seen you before in my life. Now you'll tell me what I need to know…where is she?"

"She, as you so infamously put it, deserted her room in the middle of the night and left her key on the front desk along with a check for the bill and a note saying 'Keep the change – I was never here'. So therefore, Mr…" he looked on my lapel for a name and saw none, so just kept talking, "ahem, sir, I'll keep her secrets. She's a paying customer, isn't she? Can't she overstep me however she likes?"

I wanted to rip his sardonic smile from his face and put it through a paper shredder. He had guessed that my voice was the same on the phone, and was now barraging me with cruel sarcasm as his untimely revenge.

"Look, _sir_. I'll make it worth your while. She needs help."

"I don't know," he interrupted, "why you need to find her so badly. She seemed more than capable of managing herself. In fact, she called the 'Manager to the Secretary of State' and threatened to fire me from my own hotel. So who are you, her boyfriend? Take the hint, sir; she's not interested."

I blinked twice. This man was seriously beginning to irritate me.

**Kat**

There's one thing you should probably remember when balancing on the top of a skyscraper's needle in Moscow, Russia, with nothing in your hands but a tube of Maraschino Cherry lipstick.

Don't jump.

A velvet voice, beautiful without effort, intriguing without reprieve, suddenly sounded from behind me -

"She sights a bird - she chuckles -  
She flattens - then she crawls -  
She runs without the look of feet -  
Her eyes increase to balls -

_Her Jaws stir - twitching - hungry -  
Her Teeth can hardly stand -  
She leaps, but Robin leaped the first -  
Ah, Pussy, of the Sand,_

_The Hopes so juicy ripening -  
You almost bathed your Tongue -  
When Bliss disclosed a hundred Toes -  
And fled with every one."_

_Him_.

"Hello, Kitty Kat."

"I am holding a tube of lipstick. There are forty-three ways to kill a man using this tube of lipstick. Call me 'Kitty Kat' again and you'll discover at least one of them," I growled without turning.

"Whatever you say, Kitty Kat. Like my poem? I found it just for you." I rolled my eyes in disgust.

"Who wrote it?"

"Little Emily Dickinson for you." I could feel his smug smile without so much as glancing at him. "So, Kitty Kat…what brings you and I to the top of this building at 3:46 P.M. on a Tuesday? I should be at my father's flat in Austria, sipping some chai and watching _Criminal Minds_. But hey, I thought to myself – I could just find you, right?"

"I think I've explained to you that, for one, I don't have a criminal mind," I snapped, "and secondly…Never. Call. Me. Kitty. Kat."

I spun around and gripped him by the collar, popping off the top to my lipstick and holding it above his throat threateningly. "Now, you'll tell me exactly why you're here, and why you have…_this_." I reached behind him, felt the creamy corner of a leaf of resume paper, and tugged. He attempted to block my hand but I pulled away too quickly, and he allowed me to unfold it.

"An auction flyer," I murmured. "Sotheby's!"

"I'm after what you're after too, Kitty Kat," he grinned. "And I can't have you in my way, now can I?"

"I thought I told you not to call me that!" I exclaimed, and pushed him off of me. He was far too quick, however, and wound his arm around my waist, pulling me back. "Let me go!"

"Sorry, can't do that," he whispered softly, and the hairs on the back of my neck raised slightly. I stepped down hard on his Italian leather shoes and felt his grip loosen slightly with pain. I yanked away and was just about to teach him one way to kill a man using Mary Kay's Maraschino Cherry lipstick (pity he wouldn't be learning the other forty-two), but again he gripped my forearm and kept me from escaping. "Ooh, bad move, Kitty Kat," he muttered again with another arrogant smirk.

A lacy white handkerchief was shoved over my nose and mouth. I couldn't breathe…couldn't think…

"Until we meet again, Katarina Josephine."


End file.
